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Gracie Fields
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Dame Gracie Fields, DBE (9 January 1898 – 27 September 1979), born Grace Stansfield, was an English/Italian singer and comedienne who became one of the greatest stars of both cinema and music hall.
over a fish and chip shop owned by her grandmother in Molesworth Street, Rochdale, Lancashire, she made her first stage appearance as a child in 1905. Her two sisters, Edith and Betty, and brother, Tommy, all went on to appear on stage, but Gracie was the most successful.
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Dame Gracie Fields, DBE (9 January 1898 – 27 September 1979), born Grace Stansfield, was an English/Italian singer and comedienne who became one of the greatest stars of both cinema and music hall.
Early life
Born over a fish and chip shop owned by her grandmother in Molesworth Street, Rochdale, Lancashire, she made her first stage appearance as a child in 1905. Her two sisters, Edith and Betty, and brother, Tommy, all went on to appear on stage, but Gracie was the most successful. Her professional debut in variety took place at the Rochdale Hippodrome theatre in 1910 and she soon gave up her job in the local cotton mill.
She met comedian Archie Pitt and they began working together. Pitt would come to serve as her manager and the two married in 1923. Their first revue in 1915 was called Yes I think so and the two continued to tour Britain together until 1922 in the revue Mr Tower of London.
Fame
Fields came to major public notice when Mr Tower of London came to the West End. Her career rapidly accelerated from this point with straight dramatic performances and the beginning of a recording career.
One of her most successful productions was at the Alhambra Theatre in 1925. The show, booked by Sir Oswald Stoll, was a major success and toured for ten years. She made the first of ten appearances in Royal Variety Performances in 1928, gaining a devoted following with a mixture of self-deprecating jokes, comic songs and monologues, as well as cheerful "depression-era" songs all presented in a "no-airs-and-graces" northern, working class style. Fields had a great rapport with her audience, which helped her become one of Britain's highest paid performers, playing to sold out theatres across the country.
Her most famous song, which became her theme, "Sally," was worked into the title of her first cinema film, Sally in Our Alley (1931), which was a major box office hit. She went on to make several films initially in Britain and later in the United States (for which she was paid a record fee of US$200,000 for four films), despite never enjoying the process of performing without a live audience.
Ironically, the final few lines of the song 'Sally' were written by her husband's mistress, and Gracie sang this song at nearly every performance she made from 1931 onwards.
Charity work
The late 1930s saw her popularity peak and she was given many honours: the Officer of the Venerable Order of St. John (for charity work), the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) (for services to entertainment) in 1938, and the Freedom of the Borough of Rochdale.
She donated her house, "Tower," in London's The Bishops Avenue (which she had not much cared for and which she had shared with her husband Archie Pitt and his mistress) to a maternity hospital after the marriage broke down. At the time, she was seeing Irish painter John Flanagan, who she later said that he was the only other person apart from Boris Alperovici (a later husband) who she loved.
In 1939, she became seriously ill with cervical cancer. The public sent over 250,000 goodwill messages and she retired to her villa on Capri. After she recovered, she recorded a very special 78 record simply called Gracie's Thanks, in which she thanks the public for the many cards and letters she received whilst in hospital.
During WWII she paid for all Servicemen and Women to travel for free on the trams/buses within the boundary of Rochdale
World War II
World War II was declared whilst she was recovering and Fields travelled to France to entertain the troops. In 1940, she married film director Monty Banks, following her divorce from Pitt. However, because Banks remained an Italian citizen and would have been interned in the United Kingdom, she was forced to leave Britain for North America during the war. Although she continued to spend much of her time entertaining troops and otherwise supporting the war effort outside Britain, this led to a fall-off in her popularity at home, where she was portrayed by the press as a traitor and deserter. Nevertheless, she performed many times for Allied troops, travelling as far as the islands of New Guinea, where she received an enthusiastic response from Australian personnel.
Post-war
After the war, Fields continued her career on a less active basis. She began performing in Britain again in 1948 and starred at the 1951 Festival of Britain celebrations. She proved popular once more, though never regaining the status she enjoyed in the 1930s. She continued recording, but made no more films, moving more towards light classical music as popular tastes changed.
Although there is some doubt that her British citizenship was ever re-granted after the war (she lost it due to her marriage), she did a great deal of charity work, and established a permanent home on the Isle of Capri, Italy.
Monty Banks died in 1950. Fields married Boris Alperovici two years later. After that, she began to work even less, but still sold out theatres even into her seventies.
In 1956, Fields played Miss Jane Marple in a US TV production of Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced . The production also featured Jessica Tandy and Roger Moore, and predates the Margaret Rutherford films by some five years.
In 1978, she opened the Gracie Fields Theatre in Rochdale, Lancashire. It is located next to Oulder Hill Community School. Her final appearance was at the Royal Variety Show at the age of 80, when she sang "Sally" in the finale. In February 1979, she was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire seven months before her death at her home on Capri, aged 81. She is buried in the non-Catholic cemetery on Capri.
Rochdale Boroughwide Cultural Trust holds the Gracie Field Archive.
Famous songs
Filmography
Television
Celebrity Mystery Guest on WHAT'S MY LINE (1955)(1958?)
Celebrity Guest on THE NAME'S THE SAME
Guest on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW
Footnotes
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